Wednesday, July 31, 2013

"Speculation on why Murkowski changed her vote to do that has some referencing a 'moderate Republican' influence, and Politico citing 'an intense lobbying effort on the Senate floor from Democrats Chuck Schumer, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein and others.' A more likely green light indicator may be the National Rifle Association inexplicably signaling their neutrality and the National Shooting Sports Foundation actually backing the Jones confirmation removing the danger of political reprisals, at least from the two major national organizations wielding commensurate money and influence."

As I wrote a week ago, Blue Cross/Blue Shield is trying to kill me by bumping my co-pay for the cancer drug I take from $40 per month to $3,500 per month. The malevolent bean-counting bastards still maintain their position, but a white knight has appeared in the form of a non-profit foundation which is ready to pay the extortionate difference. Yes, you read that right, God has answered our prayers. When Rosey got the word yesterday morning, she came very close to breaking down in tears. I'll have more details later, but for now it is a big crisis averted.

Now, if only the procedure tomorrow will work without complications, I might just be ready to go smuggling again soon. Keep me in your prayers. They seem to be working.

Nothing lasts forever. The NRA, which allowed itself to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Fast & Furious fight, which stood tough (thanks to well-timed elbow jabs from GOA and its own membership) against the gun grabbers during the Newtown blood-dancing episode, has fallen back into its default sellout mode. The Weenymobile is once again on the streets of DC, and people will die as a result.

Jones seemed to face tough odds in January when Obama named him to become ATF director. But with the influential National Rifle Association saying this week that it is neutral about Jones, Democrats have expressed optimism that they will garner the 60 votes needed to halt the delays and hold a confirmation vote. "I think we're going to get it," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the Democrats' vote counter.

B. Todd Jones, whose nickname within the ATF and other federal law enforcement bureaucracies is "Toad," is an unbelievably dangerous pick for this job. In the words of one of my sources, "He is a Nuremberg Man," a slavish toady who will salute and say "Yes, sir!" to any order from on high. As observed by another source in DC, "This guy would Waco his own grandmother if ordered to do so."

And now, thanks to the NRA falling back into their Weenymobile default mode, he is going to run the same unreconstructed agency that brought us Waco, in a new administration that brought us the murderous Fast & Furious conspiracy. An administration, thanks to traitorous and fatally compromised GOP leaders like John Boehner, which escaped serious blow-back and knows that it can get away -- once more -- with murder. Just ask the parents of Brian Terry.

I have often observed that Fast and Furious, if it was good for nothing else, at least bought us two years where the federal gun cops were rocked back on their heels and unable to proceed with further attacks on the citizenry while it defended itself. I hope y'all made good use of that hiatus, for that time is up. Thanks, in no small measure, to this sellout by the "Lairds of Fairfax."

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

House Republicans head home for the August break having done little to pass immigration reform, falling well short of Speaker John Boehner’s goal to vote on legislation before next week’s month-long recess begins. But far from a failure of leadership, top House Republicans are casting the inaction as a tactical play designed to boost reform’s chances.

Keeping immigration on the back-burner helps avoid a recess filled with angry town-hall meetings reminiscent of the heated August 2009 protests where the backlash against health care reform coalesced.

"Knowing how to safely field strip a 1911 pistol is a must for any new shooter. American Handgunner's Roy Huntington breaks this down into a simple step-by-step process." He also shows the faster "cheater" shortcut on breaking the pistol down that some 1911 owners may not know about.

"Hey, ATF. There is an arms cache somewhere on this map. Good luck finding it." -- signed Ramsey A. Bear.

Received this praxis suggestion from a long-time reader:

Dear Mike,

First, let me say that I'm praying everything goes well for you in the hospital this week. You've been through a lot these last couple of years.

Now on to the praxis. I came across a source for free topo maps that allow you to get the detail you want and of the area you want. I found it on some bushcraft and camping sites. Given the importance of maps to any "insurrectionist", I thought this might be useful. It involves a free program called Gmap4. The linked articles below go into great detail on how to use the program.

Interesting, if like me you have a family member who owns an M44 Moisin Nagant carbine in 7.62x54R. Brass Stacker has a see-thru scout scope mount for Mosin Nagant M38s, M44s & T53s. It is available on Amazon for $63.00.

As advertised, it allows for mounting of a scout scope or other long eye-relief optics on the Nagant while allowing for see-through for use of the fixed iron sights and works with an unmodified straight bolt handle with no stripper clip interference. There is no permanent modification to the firearm and no drilling and tapping of the receiver required.

The Brass Catcher website for the unit contains this more detailed description of the specifications:

This Mount utilizes the barrel pin hole and the pivot pin hole in the rear sight block. The Mount will accommodate a front to back (horizontal, parallel to bore axis) pin center distance of 1.56" (39.6mm) to 1.79" (45.4mm) and allows for an up and down (vertical, perpendicular to bore axis) pin center distance of .18" (4.6mm) to .41" (10.3mm). The Mount is designed to fit over rear sight blocks that measure between .750" (19.05mm) and .787" (20.00mm) wide. The total weight including hardware is 5.4 oz. We have made every reasonable effort to ensure that this product will fit the majority of M38, M44 & T53's. However, due to the large number of these firearms produced over many years around the world, it is impossible for us to allow for all manufacturing variation. Proper tightening of all hardware should result in no movement of the mount during normal firing recoil. If for any reason our Mount does not work with your specific M38, M44 or T53 it can be returned (undamaged) for a full refund.

Det. Mark Crider said that a fourth man, Demarea Harris, was present at the time of the robbery and the subsequent murders, but was working undercover as an informant for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on an unrelated investigation. While Harris has not been charged in the Fero's incident, defense attorneys raised the question of his credibility during the hearing.

Got a call late from the docs this afternoon that I am scheduled to go into the hospital to get my "glue stick" to seal the hole in the esophagus/stomach juncture on Thursday, 1 August. Will be there a few days while they keep me NPO and fed with IVs to hydrate me while the glue sets up. Unless something goes badly wrong, I'll be posting from the hospital bed. Keep me in your prayers.

Another forum sponsor was Academi, the private mercenary corporation formerly known as Blackwater. In fact, Academi is Blackwater's third incarnation (it was first renamed "Xe") since revelations of widespread human rights abuses and possible war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan threw the mercenary firm into full damage control mode. The Aspen Institute did not respond to my questions about whether accepting sponsorship from such an unsavory entity fit within its ethical guidelines.

American Handgunner ran an article back in its November/December 2012 issue, entitled "Flooded? Your Ammo Is Going To Lose . . ." You can find it here and here.

The article concludes:

The entire mess can be avoided by storing your ammunition and components in waterproof cans or containers. Viryually any surplus military ammunition cans have a waterproof seal on the lid. There are also very good commercial waterproof plastic ammunition cans available. Make sure what you buy has a rubber seal in the lid. Anything stored in these cans, with a small packet of desiccant, will survive a substantial submersion for several days.

GI ammo cans are getting scarce these days, and the prices have gone up considerably. An M19A1 "thirty cal" can, which used to be readily available for $5.00 each are now double that, or more. An M2A1 "fifty cal" can which could be had for $8.00 is now (at the last Birmingham AGCA show) twenty bucks each. Expensive? Yes. But compared to what? These cans provide an indispensable function -- they keep you ammo and components dry. What would be the cost if your ammo or components (which are highly hygroscopic on their best day) are ruined because of preventable exposure to moisture?

All the directions say to keep them in a “cool dry place”. One primer engineer I know who is a shooter gets a bit more serious than that. I will pass on to you his instructions/recommendations; I follow them. Buy primers by the case of 5000 and try to get them right out of the factory. As soon as I get them they go into a 20MM ammo can (which will hold four or five cases of primers). As I need primers I will go and quickly open the 20MM can and remove 1000 and close the can as soon as possible. These 1000 go into a 30 cal ammo can until used. I only open this can in the lowest humidity conditions possible: winter or an air conditioned area in the summer. I remove 100 or 200 primers and place these in a plastic bag with a closure type arrangement. I remove the primers, seat them, charge the cases, seat the bullets in as short a time span as is practical. He even recommends if you are going to be hunting etc coat the ends with clear nail polish wiping off the excess on a paper towel will leave the polish in place around the circumference of the seated primer. He then places these in plastic boxes and they go back into another GI ammo can for storage until he goes to the range. [Storing primers in a sealed container like an ammo can is contrary to SAAMI recommendations and is potentially quite dangerous -GAS-]

Humidity is the worst enemy followed by lubricant contamination. I am aware of one lot of government .308 Match ammo that malfunction investigation showed had oil contamination from a over lubricated machine on the loading line. Another lot was discarded when it was found to have oil in the primer mix that dropped in from a mixer blending the ingredients.

In the government (military) when misfires occur with a ammunition lot or anything else out of the ordinary a Quality Deficiency Report (QDR) is supposed to be filled out and sent to Picatinny Arsenal for malfunction investigation. I was told by my Branch Chief that the first thing done is to query the world-wide ammo control point as to how much of that ammo lot remains in the system. When the report comes back that there is, say, three hundred to four hundred thousand of that lot, they follow this with a World Wide Destruct Advisory to destroy all ammunition of that lot number remaining in any depot. Regardless of whether it is bad or not. It is cheaper to destroy that to investigate!

You may have noted that with the exception of match ammo, you have never seen government ammo newer than three years old being used. This is because all the new ammo goes into War Reserves in the ammo storage depots around the world and the oldest ammo is then removed and sent to the troops which is generally three years for some calibers and maybe forty years for others. Remember we went all through WW2, Korea and Viet Nam with WW2 50 caliber ammunition because so much had been warehoused. Not to worry here folks, government ammo stored in its original unopened cans has a MINIMUM expected life of 125 years. The trick is to never open the can until it's time to use it. Once opened and exposed to the air, the shelf life drops remarkably quickly.

Now, regarding storing primers in an air-tight ammo can, I made a call to a long-time friend who has been doing just that for the past thirty years and he states that he has never noticed a problem. Statistical fluke? Perhaps. As one poster over at the Accurate Shooter forum noted:

I hear you Jon. I've had the same experience: NO duds, luck? I am mostly concerned with consistent performance. I've heard in the past that they're almost impossible to deactivate although when I want to discard a live one I soak it with motor oil.

However I don't let my own or any others experience trump demonstrable, logical advice. I've heard too many folks justify unsafe and/or damaging actions with "I've been doing this for XX years without a problem". I don't believe that applies in this case. It's just a general observation.

I also notice that manufacturers make no effort to protectively package bricks of primers knowing they will sit on shelves for an indeterminate length of time in all manner of environment. Most cookies are better protected from humidity.

True enough. Ambient storage humidity under normal conditions is not the same as a flood, however. Some careful folks store their primers in a ziplock bag or seal them with a food vacuum system with a desiccant bag thrown in. Some folks also seal their primers and case necks with nail polish or other sealant. Since all my ammunition has, for at least the past twenty years, been stored in GI ammo cans, I have never found this to be necessary. However, I AM a big believer in ammo cans and tactical packaging. See "Packaging is everything."-- Stripper clips, bandoleers, magazines, ammo cans and crates.

“Public affairs is an absolutely critical component of our military and our department,” he said. “We operate in a world so tightly connected that every world event, big or small, can be felt in real time.”

"Little said new approaches should include engaging more with nontraditional journalists such as bloggers and tweeters, who sometimes break news but also may report gossip and rumor."

(The money quote...) “When bad things happen, the American people should hear it from us, not as a scoop on the Drudge Report,” he said."

"Upon arrival, the sheriff’s department reportedly found Mosley on the floor, still being held at gunpoint by the furious manager. The failed robber was booked on charges of first-degree robbery, first-degree theft, unlawful possession of a firearm, and second-degree criminal mischief. Add to that the mental crime of thinking a bat would be an effective tool for robbing a store full of guys with guns."

The House of Representatives has turned back a measure that would have stopped the National Security Agency from collecting phone data from millions of Americans, with all but one member of the Alabama congressional delegation voting to allow the controversial program to continue. Birmingham Republican Spencer Bachus was the lone member of the Alabama Legislative Delegation to support an amendment that would strip funding from the NSA program.

While reading the chapter on bullet metallurgy I encountered this observation, of which I was skeptical:

Recovered range scrap varies from range to range, depending on the nature of the shooting at that particular locale, but it commonly runs fairly soft (in the BHN range of 8 or so) as a result of all the .22 Long Rifle and swaged .38 wadcutter ammo deposited in with the jacketed and hardcast bullets.

I should not have doubted. Yesterday I went out to the Talladega National Forest, Talladega Division, over near Mount Cheaha, to verify some finer points of geography for the final chapter of Absolved and stopped by the Shepherd Branch firing range to see if there was anything (boxes, brass, lead) worth picking up. I always try to make the gas money count. Anyway, I spent about an hour on the range, which was empty of shooters and rangers, and got a thin yield of about eight and a half pounds of range scrap bullets washed to the surface by recent rains. (I don't dig out backstops for folks take a particularly dim view of that.)

After washing and sorting between cast and jacketed (which is advantageous because the jacketed stuff is very soft compared to the cast), the percentage of cast to jacketed was significantly higher than other ranges whose backstops I routinely mine. Go figure. The fellow knows what he's talking about.

Cooking down range scrap.

Here's a description from the Cast Boolits forum on the experiences of others with range scrap.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

I heard about this when I visited Simmons Sporting Goods in Bessemer today.

In order to increase deliveries of its most popular types of ammunition and bullets, Hornady announced that it will temporarily suspend production of 150 bullet types and 150 ammo types. IMPORTANT: These bullet and ammo products are NOT being discontinued. Rather, these less-popular, suspended items will simply not be produced for the remainder of 2013. By doing this, Hornady can reduce tool/machinery changes and thereby increase production of products in highest demand.

Delaware state officials have told Congress that they likely destroyed the computer records that would show when and how often they accessed Christine O'Donnell’s personal tax records and acknowledged that a newspaper article was used as the sole justification for snooping into the former GOP Senate candidate’s tax history. . .

The access was believed to have occurred in March 2010, the same month Ms. O'Donnell formally launched her Senate campaign that shocked the Delaware establishment by defeating Republican favorite Michael Castle in the primary election.

“So far, it appears the department destroys the access records after a short amount of time,” Mr. Grassley said. “That’s puzzling. Unless the IRS has a back-up, and I hope the IRS does, there’s no way to know how and when Delaware state employees accessed Christine O'Donnell’s federal tax records.”

The Blue Cross/Blue Shield logos. At the moment the first represents crucified patients and the second the venomous adder that bites them.

When the docs delivered me of a bouncing, five pound baby stromal tumor early last year, they put me on Gleevec, which is pretty much a specific for GISTs. The problem is that Gleevec costs somebody $7,000 a month -- in my case, Blue Cross/Blue Shield with a policy through my wife's work -- and all that we had to pay was a $40.00 per month co-pay. (Rosey has been participating in BC/BS through her work for the past thirty years.)

That $40.00 co-pay? No longer. We were informed by a cheerful telephone insurance drone yesterday that my co-pay has been increased. "Significantly," I was told (they reached me on my cell phone at the range where I was harvesting expended lead out of the backstop). "Uh huh," I replied. "How 'significantly?'" Well, they said happily, from $40.00 to approximately $3,500 per month.

The thing is, there is no cheaper substitute for Gleevec. We are currently investigating all our options and getting more information, so I'll have more later. In the meantime, perhaps you will forgive me if I conclude that Blue Cross/Blue Shield is trying to kill me.

Durbin also saying he'll hold a hearing in Washington this September that explores the influence of gun lobbying in creating laws and how stand your ground has changed the legal definition of self-defense.

President Barack Obama weighed in on Friday saying states with these controversial laws should re-examine them.

"I can also see that 'Stand your Ground' law may be something that needs to be reviewed by the Florida legislature, or any other legislature that has passed such legislation. Obviously, a lot of things need to come up for review."

Grassley says he's unlikely to block Jones nomination for ATF This guy will do for ATF what Eric Holder has done for Main Justice -- politicize it even more and use it as a weapon against regime opponents. He may not be an experienced anti-firearm zealot like Andrew Traver, but he is worse -- a slavish yes-man bureaucrat who curries favor with superiors but who doesn't hesitate to wreak revenge on inferiors in the bureaucracy who challenge him. No one is going to "speak truth to power" with this nasty. Said one of my sources months ago, "This guy would Waco his own grandmother if ordered to do so."

Also, for any Three Percenters working on their pistol skills, Greenridge hosts a practical hosts a practical pistol competition on the first Saturday of every month. The range opens at 8AM but you need to be there by 8:30 in order to register to compete. I think I'll go observe the next one, which will be on 3 August, if I'm not still in the hospital (the procedure schedule is a bit unclear at this moment).

Two would-be robbers were shot Friday night after they burst into a home with a fake gun and, authorities said, met a person inside with a real one. The two men were in serious condition at the hospital Friday night, and both had suffered multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

If it doesn't happen now, it will. Remember, China is operating on borrowed time. It's run by a government without any basis for legitimacy other than fast economic growth. To maintain power, that needs to be true, and it's not true anymore.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

While House Speaker John Boehner is keeping a tight lid on his personal position on immigration reform, conservative activists and lawmakers fear the Republican leader may rubber-stamp Democrats' controversial legislation in a backroom deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. . . “We are scared to death of what we figure is already Boehner’s end game,” a senior congressional GOP aide told Breitbart News. “There are so many forces within the GOP establishment pushing for their interests that it’s hard to conceive that Boehner will not cave to them.”

"As an ex-communist, I can tell you with certainty that collectivism -- in all its forms and despite all its various lies wrapped in noble-sounding excuses -- is nothing but the appetite of a self-appointed 'elite' for other people's liberty, property and lives. As potential collectivist food, then, you cannot successfully negotiate with an appetite. You can, however, if you wish to remain alive and free, kill or cage the hungry sonsabitches as they appear, before you, your family, your friends and your country are eaten." -- Mike Vanderboegh, email to a Sipsey Street reader, 2009.

"There's a common tendency among this generation to castrate their own thoughts. They automatically don't think about negative or complicated thoughts. They're factory farmed, like chicks in a chicken farm. After birth, their lives are regulated like that, and some boundaries can't be crossed. As long as you don't cross them, you will live very happily." -- 36-year-old Chinese graphic novelist Xie Peng.

On Saturday morning I was driving back to the used tire store for a poor man's alignment on Rosey's Toyota, when I heard the words above in an interview on National Proletariat Radio. Xia Peng, speaking from his own experiences with young Chinese, has identified the principal way that all collectivist dictators in all times and places are able to get away with their tyranny. Whether out of simple moral cowardice or the urge to belong and conform inherent in "Groupthink," tyrants count on on the masses to do nothing to hinder them. Groupthink, for the uninitiated, is defined thusly:

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.

Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates their own abilities in decision-making, and significantly underrates the abilities of their opponents (the "outgroup"). . .Irving Janis pioneered the initial research on the groupthink theory. He . . . coined the term by analogy with "doublethink" and similar terms that were part of the newspeak vocabulary in George Orwell's novel "1984". -- Wikipedia.

Doing what I do -- what I have done as best I could for the past twenty years -- in resisting collectivism as it has appeared at all levels of government in my own country has caused me to be regarded by the willing members of the herd who are my neighbors and casual acquaintances as everything from endearingly foolish to hopelessly naive to inexplicably insane.

From their point of view, they're right. These are people who, when you distill down their politics, believe that it is only logical that when a monster appears on your street that you should feed it with their friends and neighbors on the theory that they will at best be ignored as harmless and inoffensive and thus be spared or -- at worst -- at least be eaten last. They "castrate their own thoughts" to use Xie Peng's phrase, because they truly believe that "Resistance is futile." They understand that humans can indeed become the worst of monsters -- collectivist zombies if you will -- and the best thing to be done is to join the herd and be assimilated. You have to obey, but at least you get to live for a while. If, of course, you call submission to tyranny "living."

In his book, Why Orwell Matters, Christopher Hitchens commented on this human-monster transmogrification, and its use as allegory in books and film:

"Jean-Paul Sartre . . . once made a telling point about fictional and science-fictional monsters. What we fear, he said, is a creature of great cunning and energy, quite devoid of any moral or mammalian scruple. This, he went on to say, is an exact description of our very own species in time or war or scarcity." -- Page 136.

"A creature of great cunning and energy, quite devoid of any moral or mammalian scruple." I can think of no better description of collectivism and its penchant to stack up bodies on the altars of its lies. I have searched for the original Sartre quote to which Hitchens refers without success, but I did find this:

"Either the USSR was not the country of socialism, in which case socialism didn’t exist anywhere and doubtless, wasn’t possible: or else, socialism was that, this abominable monster, this police state, the power of beasts of prey." -- Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Temps Modernes, 1961, p. 184.

Yes. Exactly. Collectivist states are the worst sort of monsters and they produce acts of uncommon bestiality. Which brings us to the current monsters-as humans-transmogrified allegory: zombies. As John Hayward recently observed:

"George Romero once used the zombie to satirize consumerism, but they work equally well as a metaphor for the appeal of collectivism: no decisions to make, not a care in the world, do what the herd does, and you're always hungry." -- Breitbart, 25 Jun 2013.

Recall my own observation at the top that collectivism is "the appetite of a self-appointed 'elite' for other people's liberty, property and lives." Does this not define what a zombie is? With fictional zombies it is all appetite, and no negotiation. Those who do not wish to be eaten must destroy the zombies or be steak tartare.

The power of collectivism encourages -- indeed, counts upon -- the timidity of the herd who only wish to hide and live and do so by castrating their own thoughts. Yet, in the end, whether they resist or not, all will be eaten if the zombie collectivist state has its way. The only sane strategy for dealing with that unpleasant truth is to risk all and fight back. Unless, of course, you wish to trade your liberty for the privilege of being on the last boxcar of the last train that passes under the sign that says "Arbeit Macht Frei" on your way to the last "shower."

Collectivism's timeless appetites for liberty, property and life -- undeniable, insatiable, non-negotiable -- can only be defeated. Fight or die. Resistance is not futile, despite what the little tyrant behind the curtain would have you believe. It is, in fact, the only survival strategy that works with zombies -- communist or not.

The race agitator in chief has a point. If he'd tried to mug an armed citizen 35 years ago and got himself DRT (dead right there), we wouldn't be faced with a constitutional criminal in the White House today. Ah, the vagaries of alternate history.

COL Robert "Mad Bob" Redacted of the Dogtown Rangers Militia comments: "Too bad for the rest of us that he wasn't."

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? It is feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." --Tench Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1788

I was over at the used tire store the other day, getting a flat repaired and the subject turned to reloading. Did they have any lead wheel weights for sale? No, came the reply, they were all pledged to go to a fellow who cast fishing sinkers out of them. All of them? Yep, every one. That's a heck of a lot of fishing sinkers, I observed. Yep, he's got a right successful little business. Competition comes in all shapes and sizes. From there the conversation moved on to the old "best places to shoot" discussion. I bemoaned the fact that if I wanted to shoot I had to drive all the way down south and west of town to the Helena Wildlife Management area -- a trip of about 50 miles one way. Had I heard about the "new place" up in Blount County? No, I hadn't. I have since learned about Greenridge Shooting Range and visited there yesterday.

First of all, from Pinson it is less than 20 miles up AL Highway 79 to the range -- a significant savings. The "new place to shoot" has actually been open for about a year and they are constantly improving the ranges. The proprietor, Mr. Billy Cook, gave me a tour and I was impressed with several things right off the bat. The shooting positions at both the pistol range and 100 yard rifle range are not only shaded in shooting houses but, wonder of wonders, THEY HAVE CEILING FANS TO KEEP YOU COOL! Compared to the open air benches at Helena where the July Alabama sun can fry your brain and make your weapon too hot to touch even before you begin firing, this is like being at the Hilton.

Mr. Cook tells me that the 100 yard range is being moved soon to a 100/200 yard layout (the earthwork was plainly visible from the rifle shooting house and they are well on their way.

The other thing is that someone is always there to supervise the shooters from the video cam system in the club house and Mr. Cook is not shy about intervening to help younger shooters or when a safety issue seems to be arising. Helena is a wide open public range whose only supervision comes when the ranger drops in every now and then to check to see if he can write a ticket for using the range without a hunting license -- by no means a cheap ticket, I assure you. This leaves the range unsupervised 99.5 percent of the time and the quality of shooters range from the experienced and well-behaved, to inexperienced "newbies" who occasionally wander out to their targets without getting the "cold range" gentleman's agreement to the drunk and malevolent gang bangers and meth cookers -- "Here, hold my joint/beer and watch this." (I've actually had to shoot at Helena with a shooting buddy as a designated security man who stands behind the line out in the parking lot with a sharp eye and a loaded weapon to make sure nobody gets felonious on us.)

Greenridge also has a skeet range and Mr. Cook tells me that he is working on developing an archery area in the near future. They also have a basic firearm course taught by certified instructors.

Of course, as with all private ranges the question arises, "How much?" If you just want to shoot for the day, it's fifteen bucks, which includes a target. Most folks join the club on the following scale:

$225.00 per year - single

$190.00 per year - single with NRA Membership

$325.00 per year - family (includes spouse and children up to 18 years old)

$290.00 per year - family with NRA Membership.

There is a $35.00 one time initiation fee the first year and you get a safety orientation when you join.

Compared to other shooting clubs around here the prices are competitive and, because Greenridge is a new club, you don't have to wait for somebody to die before you get a chance to join.

Greenridge is open Wednesday through Friday from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM; Saturday from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM and Sunday from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM. It is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

One last note on a subject that both moved and deeply impressed me. The Cooks lost their young son Jeremy to heart disease and afterward the Cooks determined to do something to help out other parents in their situation. That something is the Just Keep Smiling foundation. If you get a chance, go to their website and read their mission statement.

I expect I'll be writing more about Greenridge, the Cooks and Just Keep Smiling in the future.

The head of the American Civil Liberties Union vigorously endorsed the leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden as a "service" to the nation Thursday, as former officials decried the fugitive tech specialist as someone who endangered national security by violating his secrecy pledges.

"I want to go out on a limb....I think he did this country a service. I have not said that publicly until this point," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said during a heated exchange at an Aspen Security Forum panel discussion here. "I think he did this country a service by starting a debate that was anemic, that was left to government officials who did not understand fully what was happening."

The Colorado Attorney General’s office has tacitly acknowledged that Weld County Sheriff John Cooke as well as a majority of the state’s sheriffs are right when they attempted to warn that a proposed magazine ban by Democrats was on its face unconstitutional.

During the recent legislative session Democrats in what even the Greeley Tribune has admitted was an extremely partisan session pushed through a series of gun control bills after Vice-president Joe Biden visited the state. During his visit Biden said the Obama administration was hoping to use Colorado’s gun control measures as a model for other states to follow.

“We find comparisons being made to Westboro Baptist Church's infamous protests at soldier funerals to be, well, deplorably accurate,” State Representative Rhonda Fields announced to her supporters, who reacted to Brown’s announcement in comments with obscenity-laced hatred.

That would be the same Rhonda Fields “arrested in 1976 on a larceny charge and in 1991 for shoplifting,” and who "pleaded guilty to writing bad checks in 1998." That she is anti-gun is perhaps understandable, considering her son was murdered (although others have also suffered grievous losses and chosen a different path). He’d been shot and wounded at a hip hop barbecue where a friend was shot and killed. He was scheduled to testify in that case when he and his fiancée were assassinated to prevent it.

Still, to think cold-blooded killers would have been slowed down by edicts only the law-abiding will heed is, at best, naive. And for Fields to try to intimidate political opposition into silence in such a manipulative manner demands a response -- because even though we can sympathize with her loss, we have a right to defend ourselves and defend our rights, including from those who mourn.

Essentially what Fields is saying is the Bloomberg bus -- and the evisceration of the Second Amendment that it represents -- must be held as sacred and immune from protest, and if you dare disagree, you’ll be accused of being a hate-filled zealot intent on causing more agony to grieving survivors.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

When sending payment via check for DVD purchases or subscription donations, it is important to remember that the check has to have my real name on it -- Mike Vanderboegh -- and not my email address, George Mason. The bank does not recognize me as George Mason, nor should they. If you will resend me that check, Daniel, I'll get the DVDs out to you upon receipt, and either return you the first check or tear it up, as you wish.

Well, I'm back on the air at home, the old paperclip trick (I used a cotter pin) worked. Of course that was after I tripped over a landscape timber at Rosey's work and drove a nail into the palm of my right hand. Good thing I'm up to date on my tetanus shot. (I swear the ex-wife's voodoo doll's range must have been extended from a tactical to a strategic weapon.)

Just now made it to the library. We had a flat tire this morning that had to be attended to. Also ran out of gas. Proper planning prevents poor performance, I keep telling myself. On the other hand, it may just be my ex-wife's voodoo doll has just had its maximum effective range entended. When I finally make it home, I'll try the paperclip trick on the disc drive. It speaks poorly of my technical knowledge that I never heard of that one before. Anyway, let's see what posts I can knock out before my electronic carraige turns into a pumpkin (the library restricts usage to one hour and one hour only).

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

My home computer has a problem with the DVD drive and it (a) has a disc in it that won't come out, (b) is making grinding noises whenever I turn it on and (c) is apparently blocking me from signing on, or even getting the normal screen -- just gives me a flashing cursor on a black background. I am posting this from the library. I would unplug the bastard and manually pull the disc drive, but I can't figure out how to do it. Thus, I'll probably have to take it to a repair shop tomorrow. Posting will be spotty unitl I get the thing fixed, or, worst case scenario, am forced to replace it.

My cell phone also went tango uniform this morning and I bought another cheap Boost mobile phome at WalMart this afternoon. At least I'm back on THAT grid.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.